Etonians. Anyone Agree?

[FredPuli43]

From Saturday's,today's, Times: //The number of Old Etonians at the heart of the Government is a reflection of the school’s “commitment to public service”, according to one of David Cameron’s new policy advisers.

Jesse Norman, who was appointed this week to the Prime Minister’s parliamentary advisory board of MPs, launched an impassioned defence of his old school, saying that it imbued its students with an “ethos” of public service.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Norman said: “Other schools don’t have the same commitment to public service. They do other things. It’s one of the few schools where the pupils really do run vast chunks of the school themselves. So they don’t defer in quite the same way, they do think there’s the possibility of making change through their own actions.

“Of course, they are highly privileged — it would be absurd to deny that — but the whole point of what Michael Gove is trying to do is to recover that independent school ethos within the state system, so that people from whatever walk of life can feel that they can take a proper part to the maximum.” ?//

Worth quoting, for full effect, but doesn't anyone here agree? Any comments? (I don't agree with the specific defence of Eton)

[Sharingan]

Sorry Anne, I genuinely meant no offence, it's just been my experience that local people around here have a strong Shropshire accent and local Brummies sound like local Brummies. I couldn't imagine a child going to a local school and not getting killed if he had an accent like the Dr concerned, as I know myself from bitter experience that RP accents are not always well received. Once more apologies if I said anything to offend anyone.

[DTCwordfan]

It used to be an environment (non-television times) when one would make ones fortune and then move into voluntary public service be it national or local politics, and then aspects such as voluntary service with charities, churches and all the rest, very much an ethos that the Methodists have tried to keep going for example.... That is what we have lost in these times of super communication and where opportunities have to be quickly grabbed and exploited because of global competition.

It has led to a lot of selfishness and greed. Some of our values perhaps need to be looked at and aspects of social donation encouraged - isn't that supposed to be the Big Society (that seems to have a died a recent death)?

One example of how it is has all gone tits up must be the fortune that Tony Blair is making from his hallowed presence......in Victorian and Edwardian times he would have made his money first and then gone into politics, not the other way around.

[tonyav]

It wouldn't have been the labour party either DT imo.

[Zacs-Master]

I blame Andy Warhol.

[tonyav]

Yes Zac, and that Lou Reed bloke.

[emmie]

i am trying to figure out what they have to do with this?

[whiskeryron]

Sharinhghan. Thank you for your excellent summary, I agree with you wholeheartedly. They appear to be turning out good leaders from Eton to take control BUT they do not have links with the common man & are therefore incapable of understanding the thoughts & needs of the general public. I also agree with Svejk, we should have more Grammar Schools in the system.

WR.

[FredPuli43]

I'm no great fan of Eton. It has long bred a feeling of superiority in its charges. Harrow, on the other hand, has long produced educated, louche, gentlemanly, eccentrics and reprobates who do have a sense of others. They don't lack self-confidence, they have plenty of that, but the arrogant edge of born superiority is not obvious. Eton has rather forgotten what Dr Arnold at Rugby, the creator of the modern Public School, held as a first principle, that every boy has to learn what it's like to be a servant and take orders before he can be trusted to employ anyone or give orders (hence the system of 'fagging' where the junior boys were the at the beck and call of six -formers)

If state schools all had the resources, the small classes, the personal monitoring of every pupil every day, the well-paid teachers, and the specialisation in type of pupil selected and in the general nature of the school; Westminster and St Paul's for very academic pupils, Gordonstoun and Blundells for outdoor types, Millfield for the sporting and so on; they would be as good

I think that Public Schools nowadays get the majority of their pupils from families where neither parent attended such a school and never boarded.

[DaisyNonna]

Jim, I went into teaching with the intention of teaching children with difficulties. This I did apart from the time I was abroad and there were no such jobs available. Oh, and when schools needed me to teach specialised subjects.
Does that make me a poor teacher?

[Sharingan]

I think that makes you a proper vocational teacher Daisynonna xx

[jim360]

No, it makes me a selfish one.

I think what I say holds for the majority of teachers, or people who want to become teachers -- and also, having worked briefly at a High School and seen some of the teachers there, I think it's a fair comment.

[DaisyNonna]

Thank you Shar. Jim, there are many of us about. You have perhaps been unfortunate in where you have worked.

[jim360]

Actually many of the teachers where I worked are good -- what I mean is, they also seem tired; looking forward more to the holidays than to the teaching.

I don't think it's too far off the truth to say that a public school environment is easier, and more fun, to teach in.